Nokia Lumia 710 Review

Introduction:

Out of all the major domestic wireless carriers, it’s blatantly obvious that T-Mobile has been the most proactive one when it comes to selling Nokia devices, which is evident with past devices like the Nokia Nuron and Astound. Reinventing themselves, Nokia has a lot to overcome if they intend on being a major player in the US once again, but with Microsoft’s blessings, they seem poised to make a comeback. With that in mind, the Finnish company embarks on a new venture with its upcoming Nokia Lumia 710 for T-Mobile, which is priced competitively at $49.99 on-contract, but the question that remains unanswered is whether or not it’ll be a standout hit to garner some buzz.

The package contains:

Design:

When you’re deemed as a launch pad device to jumpstart a new beginning, one would only expect to see something remarkably piercing to the soul. Unfortunately, we’re a bit underwhelmed as a whole with the design of the Nokia Lumia 710 because of its oh-so predictable appearance.



You can compare the Nokia Lumia 710 with many other phones using our Size Visualization Tool.

Accidental presses are pretty much non-existent with the Nokia Lumia 710, thankfully, because it employs physical Windows buttons as opposed to capacitive ones. Physical buttons are abundant with this one, but with its volume rocker, shutter key, and power button, they’re notoriously difficult to feel out – not to mention lacking a decent response too! Strangely, for something that’s a part of the second wave of Windows Phones, its omission of a front-facing camera is puzzling.


Display:

With the Lumia 710’s 3.7” WVGA (480 x 800) Clear Black display, it’s decent to say the least among other things, but it’s not totally mesmerizing. Of course, details are more than sufficient for its screen size and resolution, while its rich color production is especially tantalizing to the eyes. However, its overall allure is diminished by its weak brightness output and poor viewing angles, which ultimately washes things out and makes it rather difficult to view under the presence of the sun.

Interface and Functionality:

Get ready to not be surprised at all. Why you ask? Simply, the Nokia Lumia 710 follows in the same footsteps as all other Windows Phones before it – and so, there’s nothing terribly different with its Mango-fied experience. Of course, some people might feel that the interface is boring by now, but contrary to belief, we’re still enthralled by its straightforward approach, dynamic live tiles, and Metro UI. On the other hand, it’s still fairly limited when it comes to personalization, which is reserved to things like rearranging the home tiles, changing the accent color, and the background color.


Namely because of its screen size, typing can be a bit laborious due to the confined space we’re dealt with the on-screen keyboard. Lucky for us, seeing that the Windows Phone keyboard is very responsive and offers one of the best auto-correct features, mistakes are generally kept to a minimum.


With Mango’s presence, the email experience has been refined to offer a universal inbox system and threaded conversations. And of course, the setup process is simple as pie seeing that it essentially requires only our email address and password to automatically set up.


Out of the box, the handset is preloaded with quite a few third party apps – such as ESPN, Netflix, Nokia Drive, Slacker Radio, TeleNav GPS Navigator, T-Mobile TV, and the Weather Channel. Of all them, the most interesting one is none other than Nokia Drive, which offers us free voice guided turn-by-turn directions and 3D maps. Now what’s nice about it beyond the obvious things, is that maps can be stored locally on the phone – so it’ll work even if a data connection isn’t present! However, its operation can sometimes be sluggish at times when 3D landmarks are visualized.


Processor and Memory:

Providing all of the muscle power, its single-core 1.4GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon MSM8255 processor with 512MB of RAM is more than adequate to present us with a likable performance. Naturally, it moves, reacts, and executes just like any other Windows Phone before it, which gives the platform a very uniform approach. So even though some might find its CPU underwhelming on paper when compared to the dual-cores out there, its fluid movements and executions show us that it doesn’t matter all that much.

Knowing that there is no way to expand its internal storage capacity, you’ll need to contemplate what things stay and go on the handset – well, that’s because it only has a capacity of 6.8GB.

Internet and Connectivity:

Meticulously thinking about it, we never came across a Windows Phone that offered us a terrible web browsing experience – and thankfully, the Nokia Lumia 710 continues the trend. With its HSPA+ connection, it’s able to load our site entirely very quickly, and on top of that, its navigational controls are customarily tight and responsive. Sure it doesn’t boast Flash support, but when we look at its overall speediness and fast-acting approach, we don’t miss it at all – so yeah, it’s a wonderful experience as usual.


Just like the other devices within T-Mobile’s stable, the Nokia Lumia 710 is a world phone that’ll easily work on a variety of GSM networks around the world. However, its so-called “4G” speeds are only obtainable under T-Mobile’s specific AWS band. Meanwhile, it features all the usual suspect of connectivity items commonly found on most smartphones nowadays – such as aGPS, Bluetooth 2.1 with EDR, and 802.11 b/g/n Wi-Fi. Unlike AT&T’s crop of Windows Phones, this one doesn’t offer mobile hotspot connectivity – so it remains to be a carrier controlled thing.

Camera:

Sporting a 5-megapixel snapper in the rear, it hardly comes off as being spectacular in the quality department, but at least it’s decent enough to accept. Specifically, its details tend to appear slightly softer looking, plus, digital noise run rampant with shots taken under very low lighting. Thankfully, the colors are naturally representend and also the even the flash doesn't ruin this. However, its potency is only established up to 5 feet away.

The handset’s 720p video capture is nothing more than average. For starters, we do like that it captures video at the smooth rate of 29 frames per second, records mostly clear audio, and details are acceptable. However, there are some things that dull its quality – like the presence of some artifacting when panning quickly and its sluggish exposure.

Nokia Lumia 710 Sample Video:



Multimedia:

We continue to fall in love with the Zune experience, since it has a good balance between functionality and presentation value. Audio-wise, we find the speaker quality to be pleasant to the ear with its robust tones and average volume output. Moreover, it doesn’t crackle at the loudest setting.

Video playback barely gives the Lumia 710 a workout, well, that’s because it’s able to play out test video, which is encoded in H.264 1920 x 1080 resolution, without much problems. From its smooth playback to its punchy looking colors, we’re naturally content with the entire experience.

Performance:

Despite having a weak volume output with its earpiece, we still find its calling quality to be tolerable:  voices are clear and distinctive on both ends of the line, with no background noise or static evident. Additionally, its speakerphone might not be the strongest as well, but it’s gracious enough to produce audible voices. We didn’t experience any dropped calls during our testing in the greater Philadelphia region.

Considering that we’ve been disappointed by many top-shelf smartphones in the battery life department of late, it’s always refreshing to experience a device that offers us a reasonable amount of life. After charging the Lumia 710 completely, we’re able to get approximately 1.5 days of juice on normal usage, which is easily a winner in our books.

Conclusion:

Behind the lights and glamor of being the first Nokia smartphone to arrive in the US with Windows Phone on board, there’s some expectations riding with its release. However, we’re simply not convinced that the Nokia Lumia 710 is going to be THAT device to bring Nokia from the ashes, but rather, we’ll have to wait a bit longer to find it. It’s not to say that it’s a totally boring device, but it simply lacks the star power to propel it over other recent Windows Phones. Frankly, it is a nice Windows Phone and the best thing going for this one is its $49.99 on-contract pricing right from the starting line – so it’s sure to attract those on a budget. Beyond that, it’s hardly a gleaming competitor to even things like the HTC Radar 4G or the Samsung Focus Flash.

OS Version: 7.10.7740.16

Nokia Lumia 710 Video Review: